Just like New Year's Day follows New Year's Eve, the giant annual consumer electronics clambake in the desert known as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off a few days after New Year's -- in this case tomorrow -- in Las Vegas. With more than 2,500 exhibitors, the show (always huge) has grown even larger as the computer and consumer electronics industries move ever closer together.
In fact, CES is the largest trade show in the U.S. and Canada, according to Tradeshow Week Magazine. Last year, more than 140,000 people from 115 countries attended the CES.
It used to be that COMDEX, the giant computer show, was huge, but that show has gone the way of buggy whip (anyone know what that is?) so we now have one SUPER HUGE show that will wear out the shoe leather of any journalist.
We'll have plenty to report from the show, but take a look at some of the areas that this show covers (and let me know if any are of particular interest to you:
- Mobile electronics -- car audio and video, navigation systems, satellite radio, security
- "The Download" -- legal file sharing technologies
- Audio -- high-performance audio, portable entertainment devices, satellite radio, home studio products, HD-radio
- Video -- home, portable,l mobile, recording and playback
- Wireless and broadband -- need I say more?
- Robotics -- sure to become increasingly important -- and integrated -- into CE products
- Digital imaging -- cameras, software, hardware in more ways than you can imagine
- Electronic gaming -- hardware, software, handheld, online (who would have thought this would have become so big?)
Like I said, it all starts tomorrow -- all 1.5 million square feet of it!
